Thursday, April 09, 2015

In his book “Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century,” Parker surveys the broad impact that long, harsh winters and cool, wet summers have had on human populations across the globe. Parker uses firsthand accounts and scientific evidence to examine how changing weather patterns caused famines, wars and political upheaval during that time. The book won the Society of Military History’s Distinguished Book Prize and a medal in 2014 from the British Academy for “a landmark academic achievement … which has transformed understanding of a particular subject.”